


Of Frost and Frogs

by blissfulRaconteur



Category: Homestuck
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2011-07-03
Updated: 2012-08-08
Packaged: 2017-10-20 23:54:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 4,643
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/218504
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blissfulRaconteur/pseuds/blissfulRaconteur
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You are Jade Harley, and you have entered the Medium.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Frost

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A world entered. An enemy, vanquished.

You are Jade Harley, and you are ass-deep in snow.

_Snow,_  you think as you trudge through waist-high drifts toward your house, _sucks_. You think back to Rose telling you about Christmases in the northeast, fat flakes drifting downward to land on your tongue, the way it muffles noise. You remember thinking that it all sounded terribly romantic.

This is not romantic in the least. You are soaked, you are shivering, you are pretty much miserable.

It takes almost an hour to walk the half-mile or so back to your house, during which time you reach new heights of (as you see it) justified irritability. Supremely exhausted, you remember all the times in your life that you slept without meaning to, and now you wonder if it's feasible to never sleep again. The dreams you have now are fleeting, but the sinister screaming panic that wakes you up lingers for longer than you like. You shiver, and it has nothing to do with the cold.

You have no idea how you are going to get up to your house.

It seems ridiculous to you that after a lifetime of self-reliance - you had to teach yourself to _cook_ for god's sake - you should be thwarted by a hill covered in snow. But you know that unless the Incipisphere has some pitons and maybe a healthy amount of chain lying around, that hill is entirely too steep for you to climb. Feeling utterly defeated, you stamp out a small clearing for yourself and sit, hugging your knees, trying not to cry.

You don't ever cry. This is more important than anything. 

But you only ever allow yourself a moment to fuss, too. There’s work to be done. Inside the house is food, and a fire, and somewhere you can sit and rest. You wonder momentarily what happened to Becquerel after everything turned shitty. You hope he’s okay - and as though your thoughts summoned him, you hear from behind you a loud *crack* and the smell of ozone and electricity that always heralds his arrival. Turning around, you smile, ready to ask for his help, but the smile freezes.

This isn’t Becquerel. The squat, ugly creature slowly advancing on you with a grin would have once been recognizable as an imp, but after several prototypings it takes a moment to register. Most worrying in your mind is the long, pointed canine snout and crackling green electricity racing up and down its body. You’ve seen that before. You don’t know precisely what it means, but it fills you with dread.

And then the dread is gone, replaced by cold, emotionless instinct. Uncannily fast, the rifle that was on your back is in your hands and up against your shoulder and you _squeeze_ and it _explodes_ and you’re ready for the kick after thirteen years of practice and as the bullet speeds toward the imp (you are perceiving all of this as though in slow motion, you realize) you hear another CRACK and the smell of ozone burns your nostrils again and you’re _elsewhere_. Trees. Giant roots penetrating the earth, snow-covered, older than time. Reload. Squeeze. CRACK.

And then, warmth! Blessed, wonderful heat - _sweltering_ heat, in fact, like being inside of a furnace. The yelps of a hundred crocodilian stockbrokers annoy you immediately. In the chaos of the LOHACSE, nobody even notices the girl who appears in fire and the imp stalking her slowly, languidly, with apparent relish. You take refuge behind a giant concrete pillar and fire again. CRACK.

A place of darkness and skin-tearing wind. CRACK. A rainbow sky and a waterfall that looks as though it was mixed with oil in the absolute most beautiful way possible. CRACK. More heat - heat so dry and all-consuming that you almost miss the snow. CRACK.

This is not working. Not only is it not working, but it’s not working in the least convenient way possible. You have no idea where you are or why you are surrounded by salamanders. The imp, meanwhile, seems momentarily distracted, giving you just enough time to rush forward and swing with all of your might.

THUNK. The butt of your rifle connects firmly with the side of the imp’s head. Rather than the wet sound that you were bracing yourself for (you have killed animals when you had to, you remind yourself), the sound is dry and hard, like swinging a baseball bat against... well, against a giant carapace. He shrieks in pain, an unearthly sound, and - is it possible? - looks momentarily betrayed. CRACK.

Cold. Snow. It’s falling now, getting stuck in your hair and making it harder to see. And this time, you’re not alone. While the imp struggles to stand, you step back a dozen paces, reloading. This isn’t where you want to be... but almost... and then you look over. Maybe 20 yards away is a head of snow-flecked straw-colored hair and a pair of shades and a shocked expression (you would later remark that that was the only time you ever saw him taken aback, and he would give you that smirk that you hated and loved) but this time the imp jumps at you, grabs your wrist, and

CRACK

You’re back where you started. And this time you could almost cry out with relief because this time Becquerel _is_ there, your guardian, your _friend_ , and he descends upon the imp with a savagery you had not known (but always suspected somewhere in the back of your mind) was possible and you hear another loud CRACK but this time you smell wet fur, too, and you’re traveling again. You arrive in your deserted den just in time to be blinded momentarily by a bright green mushroom cloud, and then he’s there too and you bury your face in his fur (is it still fur?) and think _Good dog_. And even though this day started off about as poorly as a day can, you allow yourself a thin glimmer of hope that maybe this is the start of everything being okay again.


	2. Dreamer

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A dreamer disturbed. Your friends, lost.

You are Jade Harley, and you fell asleep, after all.

You’re standing outside your house, and it’s snowing. Everything is silent - not the muffled silence of a snow-covered world, but a deep quiet that seems to encompass everything. You take a step, and though the snow is if anything deeper than you remember, your feet don’t sink into the frigid banks. You walk a ways like this, feeling almost as though you’re dancing on top of the hills and fields of snow, and allow yourself another glimmer of hope - perhaps the dreams have changed again, perhaps not everything is horrorterrors and outer darkness. You smile, permitting yourself a twirl, your lungs aching wonderfully in the icy breeze.

Then, you look up.

You instantly regret it. The sky, from horizon to horizon, is a light-sucking, oppressive shade of black. Your companions’ planets have disappeared. Skaia and Derse and Prospit have disappeared. The stars have disappeared. And as you gape, you hear a low, rumbling voice - not with your ears, or even in your mind, but this voice seems to resonate in your heart and your gut.

“No space.”

You shiver and look down, desperately hoping that you simply imagined it, but the snow has changed, too. Everything is grey. The world is grey. And in the distance, something strange - clouds like thin wisps of smoke descending from the sky, like the legs of a spider or ( tentacles) the tendrils of a vine. You walk again, shouldering your rifle (had you always had your rifle?), heading towards the disturbance.

It doesn’t take long to discover that the tendrils are descending into a tremendous crater. You climb (or do you float?) effortlessly up the steep incline to peer down into the valley, and what you see there makes your heart stop. Your friends are there! They’re standing right there at the bottom of the valley, clustered in a small group, looking as though they’re deep in conversation. You cry out and run to them, eager to join their group.

But as you approach, you see the tendrils descend. They take Rose first, wrapping around her wrists, darkening her gaze. You hear her gasp, and the smoke enters her lungs, and her eyes change , her pupils darkening until they are the same horrifying shade of black as the sky. You hear the voice again.

“Her first. And then...”

The same happens to John. He falls to his knees silently, sinking chest-deep into the muck (how could you ever have thought this was snow?) and he cries out, a high, piercing moan like the cry of a wounded animal. It is the most terrible noise you have ever heard.

“The heir. The seer. And the knight.”

You see the smoke descending to envelop Dave and this time you grab him, shaking him, begging him to wake up, to move, to    
do something

(like you used to on Derse, remember)

and there are tears in your eyes, tears of rage and fear and then Dave is quite simply gone as though he never existed and you fall to your knees and scream, you pound the earth and you fire impotently into the sky. And you hear laughter. Great, terrible laughter that fills you up and twists your insides. It reaches an ear-splitting crescendo and then you realize that it’s you laughing, the sound is coming from your mouth and those are your fingers squeezing the life out of your friends, ripping the flesh from their bones, closing tightly around their throats-

-and then you wake up. The fire you made has all but died, the glowing embers the only light in the room. It’s nighttime, and cold. Bec is gone. You sit upright on the mattress you pulled down from one of the many bedrooms upstairs and shiver again, pulling a blanket tight around your shoulders. Your stomach rumbles.

You have _got_ to stop falling asleep.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A planet traversed. A friend, contacted.

You are Jade Harley, and you are beginning to get the hang of this Space stuff.   
It took some time (and more than a little advice from your alien counterpart) to begin to understand how everything fit together, but you are nothing if not a quick learner. You are beginning to see the bonds that hold your world together, the thin tendrils of light and void and energy that bind your world to Skaia and Prospit and Derse and the other planets. And you are beginning to manipulate them.

CRACK.  
  
A uranium imp disappears in a crackle of lightning but this time, just as instructed, you reach out and  _seize_ it with your mind and you bring it  _back_ , forcing it into the path of your bullet. It explodes into grist and shale and boonbucks, and you feel yourself grow stronger again - a very odd feeling, as it happens, like something inside of you is stretching or inflating. You’re not sure you like all of these gaming abstractions.

Becquerel materializes beside you, silent as ever - but no, it’s  not Becquerel anymore, is it? Still vaguely canine in form, yes, but prototyping Becquerel with the kernelsprite had changed him. Aside from the obvious physical changes (you think he looks kind of like a Chinese dragon), he is now, if possible,  even more protective of you. You’re glad he stays silent now. You’re not sure why he can’t speak like the other kernelsprites - Kanaya said it had something to do with him being a First Guardian - but the memory of the only time you tried to communicate is still fresh, and you don’t think your ears could take it again.

Every time you leave the house, you go a little farther, and today is no exception. Out past the frozen lake where you retrieved your first frogs, past the great hill with the stone ruins on top that look kind of like your grandpa’s head, far out over the miles-wide plain that was really more ice than snow is the largest forest you think you’ve ever seen, and you intend to explore it. You practice stepping through space - it’s an exhausting task, but it makes your exploration much easier when you can cover miles in a single step. You stay warm and safe now, having alchemized winter clothes (a novelty!) and better armaments for yourself. 

Standing now on the edge of the frozen expanse, you close your eyes and screw up your face in concentration. You  feel  rather than see the wires connecting earth to space, razor-thin like the strings of a harp, and step  _through_ the world.  
Your stomach flip-flops momentarily as you feel suddenly weightless, rushing through darkness, stars twisting around you (and beyond, a  deeper darkness that you don’t dare investigate or indeed think about), and in a mere moment you feel your feet land on solid ground. You open your eyes and the forest is before you, enormous trunks stretching skyward. Your computer chimes, and you pause for a moment to respond.

grimAuxiliatrix [GA]  has begun pestering gardenGnostic [GG] at 09:35  
GA: If I Might Be So Bold  
GA: You Seem To Be Adapting To Your New Environment Quite Well  
GG: hehe, thanks kanaya!!!  
GA: We Are Having A Few Problems Over Here So I Have Not Been Able To Track Your Progress As Well As I Would Like  
GA: But Your Frogs Seem To Be Coming Along Nicely  
GG: um...  
GG: is everything ok? :o  
GA: Nothing We Cannot Handle I’m Sure  
GA: I Was Not Able To Plant The Mother Grub Due To Circumstances  
GA: And I Was Almost Immediately Made To Regret Giving My Colleague The Wand  
GA: Urgh Sorry  
GA: Anyway  
GG: :x  
GA: I Am Taking A Brief Moment To Congratulate You On Your Progress  
GA: And Also To Remind You That There Is Another Quest For You To Complete Independent Of These Reptilian Shenanigans  
GG: oh yeah!!! i have to light the forge, right?  
GA: Yes  
GA: That Is Of The Utmost Importance No Matter The Outcome Of Your Session  
GA: Do You Remember The Volcano

(You do. You have, in fact, been making pretty good progress toward the volcano over the past few days. You can see it now, rising above the horizon beyond the forest, and you say so.)

GA: On My Planet, The Forge Was Inside  
GA: I Expect It Will Be For You As Well  
GG: okay!!! i should be there soon :)  
GG: out of curiosity do you have any idea how to go about lighting the forge??  
GA: Sadly No  
GA: That Was Handled By Some Of The Others In Our Session  
GA: And Circumstances Do Not Currently Favor Retrieving Any More Information  
GG: that’s... characteristically mysterious! :/  
GA: Yes Sorry I Know  
GA: Anyway I Must Leave You To It  
GA: Good Luck  
grimAuxiliatrix [GA]  has ceased pestering gardenGnostic [GG] at 09:47 

Well, that was less informative than you had hoped. You wonder what could possibly be happening to Kanaya, biting your lip, suddenly unsure of yourself. The forest looms dark even in the midmorning sun, and beyond, the dormant volcano towers over you. You stop, and listen. The world is silent save for the faintest of chirps and croaks from the direction of your house. Steeling your nerves, you unshoulder your rifle, finding more than a little reassurance in its weight, and take your first steps into the tangled undergrowth of the forest.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A boy admonished. A quest, begun.

 

You are Jade Harley, and you have had it up to here with Dave Strider.

You have been alone your entire life. In earlier days, you would go weeks without speaking, often to the point where you thought you had forgotten how. And then the dreams had begun, the visions in the clouds, and you spoke to the Prospitians, talked for so long that you would be hoarse when you awoke. They were always polite and interesting and courteous, happy to have you around. And then you had met your friends. John, earnest and kind, who talked your ears (well, fingers) off about movies. Rose, who always seemed so formal, so dignified. And Dave. Calm, unshakably witty, musical, smart. _Cool._

Part of the problem, you suspect, is that you haven’t ever really had to share your space with anyone except Becquerel, who (before the unfortunate incident with an exploding tower and a dead body) had always been pretty unobtrusive as long as you weren’t going anywhere you weren’t supposed to. Not so with Dave.

After the initial meeting

 _you ran to him, you jumped and landed against him and SQUEEZED like it was the most natural thing in the world, like you would do this with any of your friends, like you hadn’t been fretting for hours about whether he would like you or think your teeth were ridiculous or whether you should do something you hadn’t done in thirteen years and actually put on makeup (you didn’t, more because you weren’t really sure how in the end) and you inhaled and smelled Dave and felt better than you had in weeks_

things went sour

 _he’s always THERE, you want to scream, always TOUCHING, and every time he reaches out to touch your shoulder from behind to show you some new frog monstrosity, you jump ten feet in the air - because before, anything touching you from behind was a predator_

pretty quickly.

 _and last night you yelled at him, surprised him for the second time, because it was just too much to have him around all the time, too much to have him sleeping in the same room, to wake bolt upright in the dark from another horrible dream, panicking because you hear something that just turns out to be his soft snores from the other side of the room_

You suspect, perhaps

 _and why is he always wearing those fucking things on his eyes like he’s so goddamn cool, even INSIDE and IN THE DARK, how can he SEE when he does that, he probably doesn’t even NEED glasses_

that you might be overreacting a little

 _and now the dreams are worse, now it’s always him because THEY SEE and THEY KNOW and they are relentless_

but you don’t know why.

“Hey, Harley.” His soft voice breaks your train of thought, and you look up, both annoyed and relieved at the distraction ( _he would have said “distaction”, just one more thing that pisses you off_ ), and meet his eyes, or where you think his eyes must be, it’s not like you can tell. He’s up, dressed. It’s still early, even for them. “I’m going to get started.” And if he’s angry or hurt from last night, he doesn’t show it.

You open your mouth, not sure if you want to acknowledge or apologize, but the front door closes before you get anything out. Well, maybe he is a little mad. He probably has every right to be. Probably. Maybe. You don’t have any goddamn clue, it’s not like you’ve ever done this before. And now you might be screwing things up with the first and only person you’ve ever felt anything for besides (that human disease called) friendship.

You don’t have any idea what to do, and that bothers you.

But today you know that you don’t have any time to waste. Today you’re going to investigate the forge. You bathe and dress quickly, grabbing one of the last oranges from the bowl on the kitchen counter as you head out the door, choosing not to worry about where food is going to come from once your stores are all gone. You step outside and step _through_ with now-practiced ease, finding Dave’s red and gold thread immediately - it’s so _bright_ \- and going there, appearing behind him, and unless you’re much mistaken, he jumps. You must have interrupted one hell of an internal monologue. You let yourself feel very briefly good about getting one up on him.

“Jesus, Harley,” he grins a little shakily. “You gotta stop doing that.” He always calls you ‘Harley’, never Jade. And then you’re all business. You reach out and offer your hand and he takes it tentatively like he’s not sure if it’s going to explode, but you ignore him and step _through_  again, depositing you both at the huge stone archway in the side of the dormant volcano. He steps away and retches, doubling over, and you cannot help but smile sympathetically.

You go to him after all, but he waves you off, coughing like he swallowed something incorrectly. Attempting to preserve his dignity, you walk over to the archway and make a show of examining it closely, and he takes a few steps off the path and into the forest, spitting like a cat trying to dislodge something malevolent from its throat. He returns a minute later, wiping his mouth on his sleeve, looking quite the worse for wear.

You fix him with a wry grin. “You ready?” you ask, and he nods. You reach out again and take his hand, leading the way inside.


	5. Noir

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A friend, lost. A task, completed.

**-Dave-**

Your name is Dave Strider, and you are dying.

You aren't sure, exactly, how this happened. You and Harley had been doing pretty well against Jack. A couple of stable timeloops here, an auto-parry there. No sweat. Keep the dog off-balance, maybe even drive him off. The unholy Jack Noir - Becquerel combo beast had been teleporting around like a man possessed, and each time he did, it was accompanied by that now-characteristic *CRACK* and the potent smell of ozone. You and Harley had even pulled off some absolutely _delirious_ space-time dual tech bullshit, and you were feeling pretty good. You were allowing yourself to hope that, hey, maybe this could be it. Maybe you might wear him down enough to get a lucky hit in. Maybe it would be enough.

Then Jade Harley riddled you with holes.

As you dropped to the ground like a puppet with its strings cut, you quietly supposed that it wasn't her fault, strictly speaking. She screamed and threw her gun away like it was made of snakes, fight with the dog forgotten. Dimly, you realized that she was looking _down_ at you. You must be on the ground. Shit, you must have gotten hurt. You're never gonna hear the end of this. A dull ache was spreading up your chest. Hard to move your legs and arms. Absurdly, you hoped that everything downstairs was still intact. _I need that_ , you thought.

Jade screamed, sounding more like a wounded animal than anything that could reasonably be described as human. She was by your side now. Bec Noir was behind her, hovering, watching, looking almost protective. Looking almost remorseful. That fact overrides the pain inching up your chest and turns it into white-hot loathing. _That fucking dog just wiped out my whole fucking family_ , you thought to yourself. _Me included_. And then Jade was there, cradling your head in her arms, and you saw with a small amount of utterly inappropriate satisfaction that she's crying.

 _Shit yeah_ , you thought, _Pimp Strider makin all the ladies weep. Hella tragic. Norman Rockwell's getting the easel out of the ca-_ You coughed, and the taste was like a mouthful of warm pennies. You remember wishing that you hadn't known this was coming. You wished for all the world that when you woke up today, you had warned Jade "hey so today is the day that you're going to shoot me about two dozen times, but look on the bright side, because then we make out." But the rules had to be observed. She wasn't allowed to know.

Jade was saying something, and you noted with some puzzlement that you can't hear what she was saying. She was mouthing the word "alive". That was weird. Also weird was the fact that all the pain seems to have lifted away from your body. You felt very light. You felt like you could just fall asleep. You were tired enough. You reckoned that you deserved a little nap, a little shut-eye, just to take the edge off. Somewhere in the back of your head, you knew you were dying. You had seen it time and time again, but living it ( _good one, Strider,_ you said to yourself) was an entirely new experience.

"Sorry," you murmured, and then you fell asleep.

  


**-Jade-**

Dave dies quietly. His body goes limp. The sudden weight in your arms - the realization of what it means - settles in your stomach like a lead weight. 

You kiss him. 

It's a joyless experience. You had expected your first kiss with Dave to end up different. In this moment, with your lips locked against his, his lifeless body pressed to yours, his blood seeping through your shirt, you think that you're probably the most miserable person alive. 

Nothing happens. You were almost expecting a moment like from the end of Beauty and the Beast - his corpse coming back to life, light pouring out of his fingertips, something like that. Maybe even some kind of acknowledgement that, hey, Dave Strider is okay. A chime, maybe. Anything would have been okay. You didn't even get that.

You stand up with sudden purpose and round on Jack / Bec Noir. At that moment you don’t care that he was just trying to kill you or indeed that he had come very close to doing so. You don’t care that he has a good two feet on you or that his muzzle is full of razor-sharp fangs or that his sword is longer than your torso. You are going to rip this monster apart with your bare hands. Perhaps sensing your intentions - or, perhaps more likely, having finished whatever job he had come here to do - he disappeared with a loud *CRACK* and that now-familiar smell of ozone. Your chest is heaving with rage, your hands balled into fists, fingernails digging into your palms. 

It takes a few minutes for you to realize that you’re going to have to bury the body. 

Gravedigging is hard work, and not something that comes easily to you. But the three hours that you spend on the hole in the ground feels good. You are interrupted only once, by the re-arrival of Bec Noir, who stands a ways off, only watching. You are, like the song, comfortably numb. For that three hours, the only thing that exists is the scraping of metal into earth. 

When it’s done, you wrap the body in a clean white sheet and lay him in the ground. You had briefly considered alchemizing some new clothes for and cleaning the blood off of the body, but you thought that having to undress and then re-dress your dead friend would, once and for all, break you. _So sorry, Strider,_ you think, _you get the sheet. If this whole stupid thing worked, then we’ll laugh about it later._

You complete your work quickly, marking the mound of upturned soil with a large rock. You don’t know what else to do. You try to think of some words to say, but no words come. As you walk back into the house, mud clinging to the bottom of your jeans, the only thing you feel is a pervasive nothingness, a complete lack of feeling that you whole-heartedly welcome. 

_(later that night, stepping out of the shower, you would catch sight of the towel that he had used and slung haphazardly over the rack and it would hit you like an eighteen-wheeler, great hysterical wracking sobs that would last well into the night until you would drift off to a merciful sleep. you had not cried since you were six.)_

Once you get inside, you sit down at the kitchen counter and stare off into space. You see Bec Noir standing patiently outside, and he sees you. You look down at your hands and see mud and blood and blisters. 

You hate this stupid fucking game.


End file.
